1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrical card connector, and particularly to an electrical card connector having terminals electrically connectable to a printed circuit board using solderless means.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the prior art, an electrical card connector has a plurality of terminals electrically connecting to a printed circuit board by one of two means. One means is to directly solder the terminals to the printed circuit board. Using this means, two different soldering technologies are available to achieve an electrical connection between the terminals and the printed circuit board. One soldering technology, through-hole technology, requires insertion of each terminal through a corresponding through hole defined in the printed circuit board. The terminals are then soldered to the printed circuit board. However, the difficulty with this technology is that it is not easy to align each terminal with each corresponding through hole; thus, the alignment operation is inconvenient. Another soldering technology, surface mounting technology (SMT), requires soldering of each terminal to a surface of a solder pad of the printed circuit board. However, this technology requires planarity of all the terminal ends and of all the solder pads on the printed circuit board prior to soldering, which presents its own problems. The other means of connecting the terminals to the printed circuit board is to use an adaptor. With this means, the terminals of the electrical card connector are plugged into the adaptor, which has been previously soldered to the printed circuit board. This means is costly in terms of additional components required and the electric resistance between the printed circuit board and the connector is increased. Thus, the connection process is costly and the connection is less desirable.
Hence, an improved electrical card connector is required to overcome the disadvantages of the prior art.
A main object of the present invention is to provide an electrical card connector which can be expediently connected to a printed circuit board.
An electrical card connector for electrically connecting an electrical card to a printed circuit board comprises an insulative housing, a plurality of terminals, and a fastening device. The housing comprises a transverse beam and a pair of arms formed on opposite ends of the transverse beam. A plurality of passageways is defined in the transverse beam. The terminals each have a contacting portion at one end thereof for electrically connecting with an electrical card, a fixing portion extending opposite the contacting portion and fixed in a corresponding passageway, and a touch portion extending downwardly from the fixing portion. The touch portion comprises a first section perpendicular to the fixing and contacting portions and a second section parallel to the fixing portion. The second section protrudes in a resilient arc below a bottom face of the housing. The fastening device comprises a pair of screws and nuts. The screws are insertable through a pair of fastening holes defined in both arms of the housing. The electrical card connector is fastened on the printed circuit board by the screws extending through the fastening holes and through a pair of positioning holes defined in the printed circuit board to engage with the nuts. The second sections of the touch portions of the terminals resiliently make electrical contact with corresponding electrical pads mounted on the printed circuit board.
Other objects, advantages and novel features of the invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description of the present embodiment when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.